DOCUMENT RESUME ED 087 710 SP 007 678 AUTHOR Dale, Ralph Alan TITLE Hypnosis and Education. PUB DATE [72] NOTE 38p. EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3..).9 DESCRIPTORS *Behavior Change; Educational Counseling; *Educational Innovation; *Educational Practice; Educational Psychology; *Hypnosis; *Reinforcement IDENTIFIERS *Suggestion ABSTRACT Hypnosis is a state of mind which manifests a high degree of suggestibility. Advertising, political campaigning, and religious contemplation are all areas in which hypotism is employed, usually without knowledge on the part of either the "hypnotist" or the subject. Because of its association with entertainment, magic, manipulation, and danger, hypnosis and suggestion have not yet been accepted or practiced in educational institutions even thought the evidence is clear that they offer the promise of immeasurable reward for education. Nine possible uses of hypnosis and suggestion in education are a) to reinforce positive habits and relinquish negative ones, b) to expand consciousness by increasing sensory and sensual response, c) to improve concentration, d)to aid memory, e) to increase motivation, f) to diminish "mental blocks," g) to reduce anxiety, h)to encourage original thinking, and i) to develop self-confidence. These nine uses of hypnosis and suggestion in education are, for the most part, still confined to theory and the research laboratory. Educational institutions have not yet availed themselves of the benefits that can be derived from the use of these techniques. (HMD) HYPNOSIS AND EDUCATION U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION & WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF Ralph Alan Dale EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. Dr. Ralph Alan Dale 9365 Byron Avenue Surfside, Florida 33154 HYPNOSIS AND EDUCATION Hypnoiis and suggestion offer the promise of immeasur- able reward for education. This is not an unproved thesis. The evidence is clear. Yet, hypnosis has hardly been accepted or practiced in educational institutions. There are four main reasons for this reluctance tr. utilize hypnosis: its associations with magic, with enter- tainment, with manipulation, and with danger. Objections to the Use of Hypnosis in Education (1) Association with Magic Tribal peoples from earliest times understood the powers of hypnosis. To be sure, their understanding was not at all theoretical, but entirely empirical. Tribal ceremonials were intuitive magical events that utilized trance in order to transcend the concrete, and explore the feeling dynamics of relationships and processes. During the past two hundred years, we have become so reliant upon objective knowing, and have been so conditioned to distrust the subjective, that most traditional tribal and ancient practices have been categorically dismissed as superstition. Hypnosis has always been associated with such magical practices, and so shunned by scientists and educators. Early Western practitioners such as Mesmer were discredited and "excommunicated" by official science and medicine. Although we now understand more about the dynamics of trance, its long association with magic still carries a taboo effect. 1 But today we can no longer afford to maintain preju- dices against subjective ways of knowing..The very survival of the individual and of society .is dependent upon our finding ways to heal the breach between the objective and the subjective, a condition sociologists callalienation.) The taboos associated with our fears of and prejudices against subjective experience need to be overcome, for such experience, trance for example, can be a powerful means to help us reintegrate our fractured personalities. (2) Association with Entertainment The avoidance of hypnotism as a professional technique in education has left us the stage hypnotist as our pre- dominant association with the experience of trance. Hypnotism as entertainment conjures up images of mystifica- tion and a bag of tricks which most educators find antithet- ical to good education. Furthermore, the stage hypnotist selects subjects in whom he can induce a deep trance called somnambulism. In this state, the subject may be given the suggestion of amnesia, and foolish behavior elicited for the amusement of the audience. But in educational hypnosis a light trance is just as effective, or more so, than a deep trance. Furthermore, in educational hypnosis, the students are at all times aware of everything that is taking place during the trance and remember everything afterward. Indeed, unless they did so, they could make little use of it for learning. The association of hypnosis with entertainment there- fore is inappropriate and unfortunate for it creates an entirely wrong idea of hypnosis as applied to education. (3) Association with Manipulation Largely because of its association with stage hypno- tism, the experience of trance is thought to be manipulative with the subject unwittingly and involuntarily carrying out the will and whim of the hypnotist. But stage hypnosis is only one of two distinct types of induction procedure with opposite approaches to sugges- 2 tion. One is commanding and manipulative and generally referred to as the "father" type. The other is explanative and permissive and is known as the "mother" type. (Clearly, this terminology anteceded the women's liberation movement.) Shrout points out that the former, which he calls the ergotropic,or negative trance, engages the sympathetic nervous system and is primarily fear oriented, while the latter, which he refers to as trophotropic, or positive trance, engages the parasympathetic system, and induces rest and stability as its characteristic psychosomatic state. Stage hypnotists use negative trance which is fear oriented and manipulative. Hypnotism in education should employ only positive trance. Furthermore, educational hypnosis, from the beginning, should be oriented toward the transfer of all induction and suggestion initiative from teacher to student. That is to say, educational hypnosis 4 should emphasize auto-suggestion. Far from inducing a dependent relationship based upon fear, the positive trance and auto-hypnosis have the potentiality of revealing mental and physical capacities which can only enhance the individual's feeling of self-power andself-respect.3 In stage hypnosis, it is the hypnotist who is the performer and manipulator, and the subject, the manipulated. In educational hypnosis, it is the student who is the performer.No one is manipulated. (4) Association with Danger There are dangers in just about every process whether it is driving an automobile, crossing a street, eating, drinking, breathing, getting born, or growing up. Even thinking can be dangerous! Hypnotism is no exception. There are dangers, but not the ones usually attributed to it. The most common fear is that of never being able to awaken from the trance, condemned forever to walk the earth in an endless sleep! In educational hypnosis, since only a light trance is employed, the process of transition from trance to waking state entails no complications or dangers whatever. If the hypnotist (or oneself in the case of auto- hypnosis) fails to give the suggestion to return to the waking state, the subject will do so spontaneously with no harmful effects. The greatest danger of hypnosis and suggestion, I believe, is in its utilization for negative social, political, or psychological purposes. For example, Hitler's speeches and propaganda methods had a clearly hypnotic effect on the 4 German people during the Nazi period. Politically 5 reactionary power structures might again try to utilize hypnosis techniques in and out of the schools for their own purposes. It is also possible that individual teachers and students with sadistic tendencies might use the techniques to make psychologically and socially negative suggestions. Further, it is possible that masochistic individuals might use auto-hypnosis to make negative suggestions to themselves. These are indeed real dangers. But knowledge is always potentially dangerous. It has the power to enslave as well as to liberate. The best guarantee that knowledge will be utilized positively is to disseminate it as widely as possible. There is no safety in suppression of ideas and techniques. There is safety only in maximal exposure, education, and freedom of exchange. And so it is with hypnosis and suggestion. In any event, as Mirowitz and Tremonti pointed out, hypnosis has always been an intrinsic part of education whether or not we are aware of it. What remains to be done is to utilize it consciously and scientifically. Isn't it time that this nebulous ghost of the danger of hypnosis be exorcised and laid? The educator may then no longer use this as an excuse for not learning the scientific tech- niques of this branch of educational psychology for the mutual benefit of both student and teacher.5 Another danger is that educators might seize on hypnosis as a panacea just as in the past we have seized on other panaceas to save us from educational crises (ability grouping, strict discipline, Zaissez-faire classrooms, 6 ungraded schools, and reorganization of the bureaucracy or of the curriculum, to recall a few). Would that we could all be saved from our panaceas--including hypnosis panaceas! Still another danger may lurk in the growing fascina- tion with Hypnopedia, that is, sleep learning. Research has shown that hypnopedia can be effective. The results of experiments in the Soviet Union (1962-65) showed that "learn- ing during sleep is possible when a 'suggested set' to 6 perceive and remember the . material . is involved." Hypnopedia seems to offer a golden opportunity to utilize our sleep time for productive.intellectual work. Such an opportunity would appeal to many Americans who are always looking for ways of "saving time." However, the fact that sleep learning can be effective is no reason to assume that it should be used extensively. Research has not yet shown what physiological sacrifices the body and mind must make when sleep is utilized for goal- oriented mental processes.